How do you measure happiness?

One by one, developed
countries are drawing up happiness indices. Their governments realise
GDP growth figures alone are a poor measure of people's well-being.
Should Singapore do the same? Insight reports.

Last year, Ms J.H Lim, 23, started her first job as a tax associate at an accounting firm.

She quit after seven
months, giving up prospects of good pay and career progression to become
a physical education teacher at a secondary school.

'I didn't find value or meaning in what I was doing,' she says.

She is now much happier.
'I like sports, I like interacting with the students and I see meaning
in encouraging them to enjoy sports and lead a healthy lifestyle at a
young age,' says the fitness buff, who ran the Standard Chartered
marathon on Sunday.

Several developed
countries are going through a soul-search akin to Ms Lim's. They are
asking their citizens: Are you happy? What makes you happy?

And they are coming up with indices to measure and track people's happiness levels.

Earlier this week, Japan
unveiled a set of draft indicators. The 132 indices put numbers to areas
like women's satisfaction with men's participation in childcare, the
number of young people who live in isolation, and people's sense of
whether they are living as happily as others in the community, reported
the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

By doing so, Japan has
become the latest to join the ranks of countries such as Australia,
Britain and France, which have acknowledged the need to look beyond pure
economic indicators like gross domestic product in assessing their
people's well-being.

Two months ago, the topic
of happiness came up in Singapore's Parliament when Workers' Party MP
Sylvia Lim raised the example of Bhutan, which has a Gross National
Happiness index.

She pointed out that
Singapore was one of 66 nations to co-sponsor a United Nations
resolution initiated by Bhutan in July entitled Happiness: Towards A
Holistic Approach To Development.

Ms Lim asked how the
Government intended to introduce indicators of happiness, and how these
would guide its policies over the next five years.

This sparked a lively debate among MPs about Singaporeans' well-being and the importance of GDP growth.

It also raised two big
questions: What is the link between GDP and happiness? Is there a need
for Singapore to start measuring its people's happiness? - do think about these questions

The happiness paradox

THERE is a growing body
of research which suggests that growth in GDP, which adds up all that is
produced and consumed in an economy, does not lead to greater
happiness.

The paradox was
highlighted in 1974 by American economist Richard Easterlin, who found
that happiness levels of societies tend to stagnate after a point, even
as national wealth continues to rise.

He reviewed his findings
last year and concluded that the paradox is usually seen in countries
which are developed or rapidly developing. For instance, income per
capita has doubled over 20 years in Chile, China and South Korea, but
happiness in these places has not kept pace.

The 'Easterlin paradox'
appears to be at work in Singapore too, according to research by two
National University of Singapore (NUS) business school dons.

Based on three surveys on
Singaporeans' well-being and quality of life, conducted over the past
seven years, Dr Tambyah Siok Kuan and Associate Professor Tan Soo Jiuan
found that happiness levels did not vary much even though GDP grew by an
average of 7 per cent each year.

'Despite the quick
rebound from the global financial crisis of 2008 to 2009 and the
blistering growth rate of 14.5per cent in 2010, Singaporeans are not
necessarily happier,' Dr Tambyah and Prof Tan tell Insight.

In fact, the happiness level this year fell by 3.5 points from 72.5 per cent in 2006.

One reason behind the
Easterlin paradox is that GDP figures do not capture the stresses and
strains in society caused by income inequality and other side-effects of
growth.

Dr Tambyah and Prof Tan
note that Singapore's 'euphoric economic growth' was accompanied by
growing pains, such as a higher cost of living and the strain caused by a
foreign worker influx on housing, transport and social ties.

'Singapore citizens
perceived that the spoils of success were not adequately shared with
them as they felt slighted in the intense competition for jobs, housing
and other opportunities,' they add.

A book containing their analyses and findings from this year's survey of 1,500 Singaporeans will be published next year.

Other areas not reflected in GDP measures include work-life balance and satisfaction with life.

Just ask financial analyst Brian Tan, 26. He earns over $110,000 a year - much more than many others his age.

But there is a price. A
typical work day for him starts at 8am and ends late at night, with no
time for dinner, because Mr Tan has to handle overseas clients. Even on
holiday, he is constantly checking e-mail messages on his BlackBerry.

While he enjoys the intellectual challenge and excitement of his job, the lack of a work-life balance takes its toll.

'Sometimes it's very hard
to find reasons to be happy when I'm in the office at 2am and I know I
have to come back in at 8am,' he says. The bachelor adds wryly that his
relationship status on Facebook should say, simply: 'I'm very busy.'

Mr Tan's high income
gives him greater purchasing power, but that does not translate into
happiness. 'I've felt that I'm spending money just to justify why I'm
working so hard,' he says.

'I know I can subsist on much less and still be very happy.'

Economist Nattavudh Powdthavee of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has another explanation for the Easterlin paradox.

'Human beings care a lot
about status. Many people would rather be the second richest person in a
poor area, than to live in a rich area where many are better off than
them,' says Dr Powdthavee.

Hence, as incomes rise
across the board in advanced countries like Singapore, it becomes
increasingly harder to improve one's status in relation to others.

Dr Powdthavee offers an
example: 'If you tell someone who earns a lot of money to slow down and
work less because it's bad for his health, chances are he won't stop
unless someone else does. He won't want to fall behind his peers with
the same education and income level.'

He adds: 'Money only buys you happiness if it buys you rank and status, but there's not so much rank to go around.'

Measuring happiness

DR TAMBYAH believes 'the time is ripe' for Singapore to introduce national indicators of happiness and quality of life.

Bhutan has tracked its
Gross National Happiness since 1972, when King Jigme Singye Wangchuck
coined the term. The index has 33 indicators, including equality,
literacy, pollution, corruption and time spent with family.

Happiness indices have
gained ground since 2008, when French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy
tasked a group of economists and social scientists with studying how
economic and social progress can be measured in modern economies.

Led by Nobel
Prize-winning economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, the group's
2009 report called for measures of well-being and sustainability on top
of traditional economic indicators.

Mr Sarkozy declared that
France would include happiness and well-being in its measures of
progress. Other countries have since followed suit, including Britain,
which released the results of its first nation-wide survey on well-being
last week.

Earlier this year, the
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released an
index called Your Better Life. It applies 11 indicators of well-being
to the OECD's 34 member countries. These are a mix of subjective and
objective factors like health, work-life balance, housing, income and
social capital.

In October, OECD
secretary-general Angel Gurria said such measures are important, as
promoting growth 'as usual' is no longer an option in the current
climate of slowing growth and a looming financial meltdown.

Introducing a similar index in Singapore would come with its own set of challenges, as well-being is subjective.

Still, researchers say Singapore can take a leaf from the 11 OECD indicators and build on existing research.

Psychologist Christie
Scollon of the Singapore Management University suggests the Government
may be interested in specific areas, such as work satisfaction,
finances, leisure time, family and commuting.

'These seem to be hot
topics in public debate these days,' she notes. Research also shows that
these factors might play a 'a particularly important role in
Singaporean conceptions of the good life'.

A snapshot of Singapore

ONE old bugbear is why
Singapore tends to do badly in global surveys on happiness, such as the
Gallup World Poll on life satisfaction and the Happy Planet Index.

Cultural differences
could play a part, says Professor Scollon. Asian countries usually score
lower than North America and Western Europe in many world surveys, she
notes.

In a study she carried
out which compared Singaporeans and Americans, she found that
Singaporeans emphasise wealth more in their conception of the good life
than Americans. 'Too much emphasis on wealth has been shown to be
detrimental to well-being,' she says.

Different cultures also
have different norms about what is considered good and desirable.
'Americans strongly value feeling good and being happy. In Asian
societies, pleasant emotions are also desirable but less so,' adds Prof
Scollon.

But Dr Powdthavee of NTU cautions that international happiness rankings should be taken in context.

The main purpose of
happiness indicators is to track how people within a country fare across
time and demographic groups, he argues. The information should also be
made publicly available for academics and policymakers to study.

Within Singapore, Dr Tambyah would like to see greater collaboration among academics studying happiness.

'There are many research
scholars interested in the study of happiness. If we could pool all our
resources, along with funding from the government, we might be able to
come up with a sustained programme of research that we can track over
time,' she says.

But studies like those
she and Prof Tan have conducted already serve to provide a snapshot of
Singaporeans' happiness. And with a happiness level which has hovered
around 70 per cent for the last seven years, it seems Singaporeans may
not be that unhappy after all.

Some factors like
satisfaction with family life and national pride also keep cropping up
when Singaporeans are asked what makes them happy.

For instance, a survey by
Grey Singapore marketing agency, released in October, found that
Singaporeans were happiest about these two factors, as well as their
religion and spirituality.

'Religion provides you
with an outlet and gives answers to things that modern science and
modern life cannot give answers to,' says Inter-Religious Organisation
president Ashvin Desai, 55.

While the Grey Singapore
survey's sample size of 200 is not large enough to be statistically
representative, its findings on how happiness varies across age groups
squares with global trends.

Singaporeans aged 18 to
29 reported the greatest net unhappiness, while the most number of
people who said they were very unhappy came from the 30 to 44 age group.

On the other hand, Singaporeans aged 45 to 59 were the happiest.

Research has shown that happiness levels form a U-shape across the ages, typically rising after middle age, says Dr Powdthavee.

Mr Desai, who falls into
the happiest age group of Singaporeans, is not surprised by the finding.
'When you are young, you have a lot of aspirations. But when you reach
my age, you tend to accept things as they are and be satisfied with what
you have.'

Happiness - a work in progress

TO TAKE happiness seriously is not to neglect economic growth.

Psychologist Ng Wei Ting
of UniSIM, who has studied the connection between wealth and happiness,
says that income remains a moderately strong predictor of life
satisfaction.

Factors linked to poor economic growth - such as unemployment - could also make people unhappy.

Some economists have
argued that the Easterlin paradox is flawed as within each country,
people with higher income tend to report higher satisfaction with life.

Dr Ng and Prof Scollon
explain that income could relate differently to various aspects of
well-being. Income tends to have a stronger link to people's
satisfaction with life as a whole but weaker links to positive and
negative feelings.

'Both well-being and
economic indicators are important,' says Dr Ng. 'The issue is how to
integrate these well-being indicators such that they can supplement
traditional economic indicators, and not to replace the latter.'

Singapore's national pledge enshrines the words 'happiness, prosperity and progress'.

In a 1998 interview with
The Straits Times, then Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew said those words
were chosen because 'we wished for a state of well-being opposite to the
one we were then in. We were down in the dumps with communal riots, the
economy was in bad shape and there was no progress with
industrialisation. These words represented our aspirations for the
well-being of a people.'

Singapore's circumstances
have changed dramatically since then. Perhaps it is time to think anew
about how to match those aspirations to the nuts and bolts of
policymaking.

Getting to grips with the nebulous idea of happiness is a first step.

As Professor Stiglitz
said when unveiling his 2009 well-being report for France: 'What you
measure affects what you do. If you don't measure the right thing, you
don't do the right thing.'